Roman Beck is assistant professor and the E-Finance and Services Science Chair at the Institute of Information Systems at the Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Roman is initiator and project coordinator of the BMBF-funded joint research project “Financial Business Grids” and heads research on services sourcing, services management, and services engineering at the E-Finance Lab. He also conducts research in the area of IT cooperations within public private partnerships together with the ISPRAT institute. Previously, Roman coordinated the research project IT Standards and Network Effects, funded by the German National Science Foundation. Since 2001 he was responsible for the German part of the multi-national research project Globalization and E-commerce, coordinated by CRITO, University of California at Irvine. His research in services science focuses on the role of IT in information management, creating new IT services, Enterprise 2.0 and Mashups, and IT project management.

Roman publishes on a wide array of topics in the field of IT services creation, management, and sourcing and has received several best paper nominations and awards at conferences. He serves as senior editor for the Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (JITTA) and as reviewer and associate editor for countless journals and conferences, e.g., ICIS, ECIS, and WI. His academic research has been presented at several international IS conferences and has been published in proceedings and academic journals such as Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), Journal of Information Technology (JIT), Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), Australiasian Journal of Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Communications of AIS, EM-Electronic Markets, Information Systems and e-Business Management, Information Polity, Information Systems Frontiers, IT & People, Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, Journal of Global Information Management, Journal of Grid Computing, and Systèmes d Informations et Management.

Until today, Roman has raised € 3.31 Mio research grants from the US and German National Science Foundation, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and private organizations.

2014

Improving Job Performance in Mobile Work Environments through Mindful Organizing

In: EFL Quarterly 4/2014; Frankfurt am Main

Category: Miscellaneous

Abstract

Organizational mindfulness (OM) supports the management and employees working in the increasingly dynamic work environments driven by cloud computing or mobile devices. Specifically, in mindful organizations, such as financial institutions, reliable outcomes arise from om in the face of complex information systems. However, extant is research has disregarded the multilevel structure of mindfulness, especially the importance of mindful organizing (MO) on lower hierarchical levels. Based on data from 256 users of an organization wide cloud-based desktop-as-a-service system, we found a significantly positive influence of the combination of om and mo as well as differential effects for both on job performance.

For knowledge-intensive organizations in the finance industry, an effective knowledge exchange among employees is crucial for the competitive performance. Therefore, companies increasingly rely on social media platforms to facilitate communication and collaboration. To enhance our understanding of successful communication in enterprise social media, we apply human coding and quantitative analysis to the content and tone of 15,505 enterprise microblogging messages created by 1,166 employees of an international financial service provider. Our results suggest that a more factual-oriented communication type benefits from a higher knowledge exchange effectiveness compared to a primarily self-disclosing communication type.

The way in which people communicate affects their relationship building, social network structures and ultimately the knowledge they receive through their connections. For organizations, an effective knowledge exchange among employees is crucial for the competitive performance. Therefore, companies rely increasingly on social media platforms to facilitate communication and collaboration. To enhance our understanding of successful communication in enterprise social media, we apply human coding and quantitative analysis to the content and tone of 15,505 enterprise microblogging messages created by 1,166 employees of an international financial service provider. Specifically, we develop a model-based operationalization of communication styles and empirically derive two general communication types. Analyzing the quality and number of answers to questions from these communication types, we identify differences in the effectiveness of knowledge exchange. Our results suggest that a more factual-oriented communication type benefits from a higher knowledge exchange effectiveness compared to a primarily self-disclosing communication type.

SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE COMMONLY USED IN PRIVATE AND BUSINESS LIFE. DIFFERENT
STUDIES OUTLINE THAT THIS TREND WILL INCREASE IN THE NEARER FUTURE. IN ORDER TO
UNDERSTAND THE BEHAVIORAL INTENTION TO PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL NETWORKS OF NEXT
GENERATION EMPLOYEES, WE EXTENDED THE WELL-ESTABLISHED THEORY OF PLANNED
BEHAVIOUR TO HABIT AND INFORMATION OVERLOAD. USING SURVEY DATA FROM 262 PARTICIPANTS,
WE FOUND THAT THE OVERLOAD OF INFORMATION PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE
TO PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL NETWORKS, BESIDES THE HABIT TO USE SUCH NETWORKS.

Design science research (DSR) has become an area of interest within information systems (IS) through its possibility to develop information technology (IT) artifacts in a structured way and to derive theoretical findings at the same time. In this paper, we present findings from the development of three IT artifacts together with industry. We started these development projects with a strict DSR lens but soon realized that guidelines recommended by established DSR frameworks fall short when it comes to develop predictive and explanatory knowledge. In addition, existing DSR frameworks do not consider the non-linear, dynamic process of IT artifact development, especially when conducted together with partners from industry. Thus, in the aftermath we conducted a comparison between our research approach and resulting findings with relevant literature on theorizing in IS to generate explanatory and predictive knowledge in DSR. In so doing, we were able to enrich the IT artifact development process with techniques to generate explanatory and predictive knowledge. This paper summarizes our findings in a reflection of the three IT artifact development projects as well as illustrates how explanatory and predictive knowledge can be generated and used in DSR.

Since the effort required to develop a system depends on its requirements,
it is important to consider the resulting effort when deciding on the
requirements. Miscalculating the effort may lead to requirements that cannot be
implemented within given budget constraints. In order to support requirements engineers in calculating the effort resulting from the requirements they elaborate
correctly, we develop a mapping model for assessing project effort from requirements (MMAPER) in this paper. MMAPER incorporates effort estimation into requirements engineering and thereby enables engineers to proactively assess project
effort without demanding that they spend significant additional time on this task. MMAPER measures system size using function point analysis and assesses the resulting effort using the Constructive Cost Model 2. The theoretical underpinning of the methods stems from theoretical perspectives from which we derive theories of
how requirements determine the resulting project effort. We also take into consideration that it is important to distinguish requirements of different size but also implemented in different contexts for estimating the resulting effort. We empirically evaluate the model using data from five case studies which we conducted with a financial services organization. The developed model provides very accurate effort estimations, across both controlled experiments and field applications.

Sensing Social Media for Corporate Reputation Management: A Business Agility Perspective

In: Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS); Barcelona, Spain

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

The concept of business agility reflects an organization’s need to develop sensing capabilities for being able to respond to changes in the business environment rapidly. Therefore, intelligent information systems are needed to support decision makers with accurate and timely information. Since corporate reputation is among the most valuable assets, organizations need efficient measuring techniques for being able to manage it. Recently, due to the advent of social media new reputational challenges have emerged for firms, since such technologies significantly increase the risk for being associated with negative issues. Therefore, organizations should utilize there IT-systems for actively sensing social media content as a basis for a quick response to reputational threats. Accordingly, we provide an empirical example on how firms might improve corporate reputation management through sensing social media. Specifically, we analyze a dataset of 271,207 messages about a large American Bank collected from the public microblogging platform Twitter. For our empirical investigation, we applied automated sentiment analysis and manual content analysis. Our results demonstrate how social media might impact corporate reputation and what organizations can do to prepare themselves. Beyond corporate reputation management, analyzing social media content may be valuable for many other purposes to improve an organization’s sensing capabilities.

Determining how to cope with existing systems is an important issue for information systems development (ISD). In this paper, we investigate how well different ISD patterns are suited for coping with existing systems. Empirical results, gathered from three software development projects undertaken by a financial institution, suggest propositions regarding how ISD patterns and existing systems affect the characteristics of objective ISD complexity, which in turn determine overall experienced complexity. Existing systems increase complexity due to conflicting interdependencies, but ISD patterns that reduce this complexity, such as those that employ bottom-up or concurrent consideration patterns, are best suited for coping with existing systems. In contrast, top-down and iterative focusing patterns, as classically used in new development, increase the complexity associated with conflicting interdependency, which makes them particularly unsuited for coping with existing systems in ISD.

In distributed work environments, collaborators often lack situation awareness, which can be described as knowledge about what is happening in an individual’s work environment. Thus, information systems are needed to support situation awareness between distributed workers. However, despite its relevance, the concept lacks the clear theoretical understanding needed for a rigorous specification and evaluation of such systems. Based on an extensive literature review, we therefore develop a conceptual model to improve understanding of situation awareness in distributed collaboration. We demonstrate how the model may be utilized by evaluating an existing social collaboration platform regarding its ability to support situation awareness. Therefore, we develop an operationalization of the model and analyze the content of more than 15,000 enterprise microblogging messages obtained from an international financial institution. The results provide first evidence, that enterprise microblogging might be an appropriate solution to overcome the issue of situation awareness in distributed collaboration.

Financial services providers are exposed to a highly turbulent environment that is characterized by an intense competition for the development of new financial products and the attraction of customers. Against this background, Grid technology assimilation can be assumed to be a potential strategic response to address fast changing market demands and to enhance the operational agility of business processes. This article presents the results of a quantitative field study conducted to analyze to what extent Grid assimilation impacts on the agility of business processes as well as the role of environmental turbulence in the Grid assimilation process. The research model was validated based on 178 responses from senior IT decision makers of financial services providers in the U.S. that have already adopted Grid technology. The results from partial least squares analyses suggest that environmental turbulence significantly moderates the relationship between Grid assimilation and operational agility.

The asset-backed securities (ABS) market shrank due to the financial crises in 2007/2008. The financial collapse was caused by both the consumer and the commercial ABS markets failure. However, the ABS market is an important source of funding for market participants in the financial services industry. Hence, we see a returning trend for ABS markets and present in this paper the development of a prototype from a design science research (DSR) perspective to enable smaller banks to securitize and sell their assets. Given the relatively low mortgage and credit volumes within smaller banks they are currently not able to package and sell their securities. The prototype developed in this paper offers a solution by pooling all mortgages gathered from hundreds of smaller banks, calculating the attached risk, and finally, selling them to investors. In this context, DSR enabled us to build such a cooperative strategy in form of a prototype.

2010

The Nature of IT Services from a Management and IS Research Point of View

In: Proceedings of SIGSVC Workshop at ICIS 2010; St. Louis, MO, USA

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

Theory building is not only underdeveloped in IT services management research, but in general in IS. Given the paradigm shift that comes from the development away from a networked economy towards a network economy, the lack of spending enough attention to theorizing in IS becomes even more obvious. In the light of other "megatrends" in IS research, such as the increasing professionalization and use of statistical methods and the exploitation of extremely large sets of data (often harvested from social media sites), we might lose interest in theorizing in the presence of the tremendous amount of available empirical data. In this position paper, the author advocates that services science researchers should focus on rigor and relevance in their research approaches.

Inter-organizational cooperations between public and private partners, called public private partnerships (PPP), are increasingly gaining more importance concerning renewal, standardization, and optimization of the information technology (IT) infrastructure of public sector organizations. Reasons for this trend include the search for partners with the necessary technological and innovative know-how for sourcing of IT and the identification of cost-saving potentials. Unfortunately, IT-PPP-cooperations are particularly susceptible to failure due to the clash of different cultures. Divergent understandings and expectations, and pressure from the relevant stakeholders hinder a working partnership. Therefore in this exploratory, qualitative single-case study from the German TollCollect IT megaproject, we draw on findings from boundary spanning literature to explain how establishing preconditions for boundary spanning and actively bridging the gap between the partners, moderated by external stakeholder support, affects the formation of mutual trust and hence the success of an IT-PPP-megaproject.

A challenge that IS researchers face in general is to combine the goals of generating new scientific knowledge while at the same time producing practically relevant research results, e.g., in the form of IT artefacts. To combine rigor and relevance, researchers and practitioners need to collaborate to develop and employ methods that enable both the systematic generation of scientific insights and the knowledge exchange between academia and industry. In this paper, we present the findings of a research project where we entered into an industry-academic collaboration with the financial services industry involving three software development and implementation projects. We adopted a design science research approach to accompany the project and to guide the scientific discovery process. In the course of our research process we developed an innovative research model that integrates our experiences from the research project with existing design science research models.

Assessing Project Effort in Requirements Engineering: A Report on Design Research in Progress

In: DESRIST 2010: 5th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology HERBERT A. SIMON BEST PAPER AWARD for the best paper of the conference; St. Gallen, Switzerland

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

In this paper we report on our design research in progress, where we have developed an artifact that assesses project effort resulting from requirements. Based on models used in the goal-oriented requirements engineering method KAOS, the artifact measures system size via function point analysis and analyzes system complexity via structural analysis. In addition, we provide theoretical explanations and empirically validate how size and structural complexity affect project effort. Overall effort depends on counted functions that must be transformed, since software development can be regarded as a transformation process where size matters. Structural complexity matters as well, since software development is also a complex problem, where effort spent depends on the structure of the problem. Insights from empirical evaluation in three software development projects are encouraging, wherefore we believe that the artifact appropriately assesses project effort. Furthermore, our artifact increases the utility of KAOS by providing additional information on project effort.

Project effort is critical for the success of software development projects. It has a major impact on whether constraints in time and budget can be complied with. But although requirements affect project effort, requirements engineering (RE) methods are not capable of assessing project effort.
In this paper, we present our mapping model for assessing project effort (MMAPE). MMAPE incorporates into RE the assessment of project effort resulting from requirements for software development projects. It maps semantics of the RE method KAOS onto structures that are counted in function point analyses. We applied MMAPE in a case study on a software development project within a large financial institution. The validity of MMAPE is supported, since we found throughout consistent statements between information provided by MMAPE and data gathered from the case.

Prior research in the context of public private partnerships has mainly focused on organizational and risk management aspects. Because there is a growing number of IT megaprojects in the context of public private partnerships, recent work concentrates on the explanation of the relationship between public and private partners and the success factors for these relations. However, we still have a lack of understanding on the causes and consequences for IT megaproject failure in the context of public private partnerships. In this exploratory, qualitative single-case study from the German TollCollect IT megaproject we draw on findings from the psychological contract theory to explain psychological contract violation as a threat to IT megaproject success. Our research model suggests that the management of common understanding and expectations, moderated by political and public pressure of a public-private environment, affects the stability of the psychological contract and therefore the success of an IT megaproject in the context of public private partnerships.

Conflict as Manifestation of Culture in Global IS Outsourcing Relationships

In: Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Information System (ECIS 2010); Pretoria, South Africa

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to propose a new way of analyzing culture in global IS outsourcing relationships. Previous research in IS has focused on the analysis of values, beliefs, customs, and other elements of culture whereas other inherent characteristics of culture, such as its dynamic and subjective nature, have been widely ignored. Hence, we suggest analyzing culture and identity in relation to action thereby accounting in more detail for the above mentioned characteristics. In particular, we develop a conceptual model describing the relationship between social identity and conflict in global IS outsourcing relationships. Propositions are derived from social identity and inter-personal conflict theory. The concept of cognitive flexibility (derived from cultural intelligence theory) is introduced as a moderator variable, influencing the relationship between social identity and inter-personal conflict. The conceptual model developed in this paper makes a theoretical contribution to the global IS outsourcing domain and serves as a basis for future empirical research.

How to Orchestrate IT Project Portfolios More Successfully – Application of a Theory-Driven Proactive Operational Risk Management Approach

In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Research Workshop on IT Project Management (IRWITPM 2008); Paris, France

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

Monitoring and managing thousands of IT projects simultaneously is extremely challenging for large consultancies or IT service providers wherefore a functioning and effective risk management approach is of pivotal importance. In this paper we illustrate the preliminary results of an ongoing longitudinal action research project. Invited by the CIO, the authors were embedded in a reorganization project of one of Europe’s largest IT service provider’s risk management office, responsible for several thousand IT projects. In this action research approach, the authors were able to contribute to the improvement of the existent risk management approach from a theoretical perspective as scientific consultants. First results indicate that the new proactive risk management let to a 25% reduction of critical project indexes in 2007. This research-in-progress paper will outline the applied action research approach and the current status of the ongoing project.

Understanding Sources of Conflict in Near- and Offshore IT Outsourcing Projects

In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Research Workshop on IT Project Management (IRWITPM 2008); Paris, France

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to develop a theoretical model depicting sources of conflict in near- and offshore outsourcing projects. As previous research in the IT outsourcing conflict domain is scarce, we draw on the literature stream on global virtual teams as a conceptual basis. We transfer an existing model of conflict in global virtual teams to the IT outsourcing domain and enhance our understanding of conflict in global IT outsourcing projects by additional near- and offshore outsourcing specific characteristics. A key finding is that conflict in global IT outsourcing projects is caused by antecedents that go beyond geographic distance and technology mediation. Furthermore, subtle differences exist between near- and offshoring projects concerning the relevance and effect of individual antecedents.

Adoption research has largely ignored the dynamic impact of network effects on technology adoption and diffusion. For example, some technologies become more attractive the more social peers use them as well. But adoption at the same time increases the value for the peers and thereby their adoption decisions as well. Unfortunately, interdependencies like these make adoption and diffusion patterns very complex.
Drawing on network effect theory, we develop an adoption and diffusion model that explicitly considers the role of direct and indirect network effects for individual technology adoption, using mobile commerce adoption as application example. By applying a simulation approach we can exemplify and analyze the fundamental adoption dynamics given rise to by network effects. We thereby propose a way of how to incorporate network effects into adoption research and disclose the role of the technology diffusion lifecycle for individual adoption.

This paper analyzes the handling of customer complaints after shipping ordered goods by applying automated reputation and trust accounts as decision support. Customer complaints are cost-intensive and difficult to standardize. A game-theory based analysis of the process yields insights into unfavorable interactions between both business partners. Trust and reputation mechanisms have been found useful in addressing these types of interactions. A reputation and trust management system (RTMS) is proposed based on design theory guidelines as an IS artifact to prevent customers from issuing false complaints. A generic simulation setting for analysis of the mechanism is presented to evaluate the applicability of the RTMS. The findings suggest that the RTMS performs best in market environments where transaction frequency is high, individual complaint-handling costs are high compared to product revenues, and the market has a high fraction of potentially cheating customers.

Expectations about stand-alone and network benefits determine the adoption decision of customers and hence the diffusion of standards. To increase the number of adopters of a communication standard like EDI, not only the ability to exchange messages (as a source of direct network effects), but also the provision of complementary services such as standardized master data, e.g., by establishing a central, industry-wide EDI data pool (as a source of indirect net-work effects) is important. We thus examine the differing impact of direct and indirect network effects on the adoption and diffusion of communication standards. The incorporation of both network benefits into an agent-based simulation model may help to better understand the underlying diffusion problem.

The application of Grid technology is finally spreading from engineering
and natural science-related industrial sectors to other industries with high demand
for computing applications. The financial services industry is one of these sectors,
however, the diffusion of Grid technology within this sector is often hindered by a
lack of incentives to share the computational resources. A promising way to overcome
these barriers is the introduction of a pricing mechanism for the use of Grid-based
resources. This work introduces a possible application of such a pricing approach and
provides some simulation scenarios to illustrate how effective such an economized
Grid solution can be. The simulation results indicate that pooling of IT resources can
produce a reduction of 33% in cost compared to individual and dedicated servers.
However, with a price-based allocation of computing resources, a further 10% of
cost reduction can be achieved by introducing an auction mechanism. Therefore we
claim that there is huge cost reduction potential in the financial services industry
beyond the savings that can be achieved by a utility-based allocation of computing
resources, if economically inspired allocation methods are combined with advanced
refining and learning methods in the allocation process.

One might think that the success of a financial investment can be measured easily as performance, defined as the return-on-investment between two points in time. However, the accurate calculation can be complex and compute-intensive, e.g., for a single customer but especially
for the entire customer base of large institutions like banks. In
order to meet these computational demands, grid computing presents
a secure, reliable and scalable technology to provide shared access to
heterogeneous resources. This research-in-progress paper introduces a service-oriented architecture for portfolio performance measurement that is based on a grid layer. It first emphasizes the importance of performance measurement as success measure and steering tool before the calculation is presented in detail. Since the consolidation of required data is very compute-intensive, different
calculation methods are encapsulated. Finally, a service-oriented grid architecture for performance measurement is presented and evaluated using criteria from system engineering and design science.

In: Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on IT Project Management pre-ICIS Workshop; Montreal, Canada

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

Project management is still a problematic area in the IS field. One source of concern is that of project escalation, a continued commitment of resources to a failing course of action. One explanation for escalation is the deaf effect response to bad news reporting (when a decision maker doesn’t hear, ignores or discounts a report of bad news). This research extends existing prior work by adding the effects of societal collectivism to the existing model proposed by Cuellar, Keil and Johnson (2006; 2007). In addition, this research examines a model of societal culture influence on individual decision making behavior based on Straub, Loch, Evaristo, Karahanna, & Srite (2002). It also explores the use of the GLOBE cultural values frame in IS research and the Ford, Connelly, Meister (2003) approach to using the cultural values frameworks in a research setting. This research develops hypotheses regarding the effect of societal collectivism on the deaf effect. The expanded model and associated hypotheses will be tested using matching laboratory experiments conducted in the U.S., Germany, China, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. We expect to show how the deaf effect is influenced by differences in societal collectivism.
At this point, data collection has been completed in all geographies except Saudi Arabia. Data from the USA, South Africa and Germany have been coded. Data from China are in the process of being coded. We are now beginning to analyze the data. At the time of presentation, we will be able to present the preliminary findings of our study. We will discuss how the response to bad news reporting is affected by societal collectivism. We will also demonstrate how the GLOBE cultural values framework can be used in IS cross-cultural research.

The financial service industry is one among other industries that request increasingly the use of Grid technology for their intensive computing demand. An achievable way to accelerate the sharing of Grid resources within this sector is the establishment of a pricing mechanism. To strengthen this theory, a simulation with different pricing scenarios has been set up with the indication that price-based allocation of Grid-resources combined with an auction mechanism can lead to a cost reduction of more than 40%. This result
shows that there is a huge cost reduction potential in the financial services industry.

The application of Grid technology is finally spreading
from engineering and natural science-related industrial sectors
to other industries with computational demanding applications.
The financial service industry is one of these sectors,
however, the diffusion of Grid technology within this sector is
often hindered by missing incentives to share the computational
resources. A promising way to overcome these barriers is the
introduction of a pricing mechanism for the use of Grid-based
resources. This work introduces a possible application of such
a pricing approach and provides some simulation scenarios to
illustrate how effective such an economized Grid solution can
be. The simulation results indicate that pooling of IT resources
can provide a cost reduction of 33% compared to individual
and dedicated servers. However, with a price-based allocation
of computing resources, further 10% of cost reduction can be
achieved by introducing an auction mechanism. Therefore we
claim that there is huge cost reduction potential in the financial
service industry beyond the savings that can be achieved by
a utility-based allocation of compute resources, if economically
inspired allocation methods are combined with advanced refining
and learning methods in the allocation process.

The automation of business processes by the use of paper-free EDI transmissions between business partners can be an incentive to advance the exchange of orders, invoices, and customer complaints without human interruptions by integrating and embedding trust mechanisms. This paper analyzes the applicability of automatically updated trust accounts for customer relationship management for the handling of customer complaints. The model introduced in this paper can help to reduce handling and shipping costs significantly and thereby improves customer benefits, resulting in higher customer loyalty.

2006

In: Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Adoption and Diffusion of Information Technology (DIGIT) Pre-ICIS Workshop; Milwaukee, USA

Category: Proceedings

Abstract

IT standards are subject to network effects which establish challenges concerning a successful diffusion of standards. A renowned example is a mobile service provider trying to establish a network of customers while potential user often wait until the network is sufficiently large in terms of other users (direct network effect) or content available (indirect effect). Despite the potential benefits to adopters and providers, there is still much uncertainty on the differential impact of direct and indirect network effects on the diffusion of standards and their impact on successful diffusion strategies to establish a user base. Our research questions thus are:

(a) …what are the adoption drivers of IT standards and
(b) …how can providers influence these drivers to develop an installed base?

Based on network effect theory, we propose a formal model that simultaneously considers the different effects of direct and indirect network effects on the diffusion of communication standards. Using com-puter-based simulations we can show that IT providers could exploit the alternating impact of direct and indirect network effects at different diffusion stages to successfully establish an installed base. This has fundamental implications for the provider’s pricing and market strategy.

In this research, we analyze in a longitudinal case study the German electronic toll collect system (TollCollect) for heavy trucks that is operating now since January 1st, 2005. With more than €3 billion of revenue stream per year and altogether €2 billion for development and installation of the system, the TollCollect project was not only the single-largest public-private partnership project ever rolled out in Germany, but also the largest IT development project in Europe in the years between 2002 and 2005. Through interviews, secondary data, and documentations, qualitative data will be gathered on commitment and escalation in large-scale public private partnership projects. The aimed at goal is the development of an inductively generated, grounded model of de-escalation process. The research objective can be subdivided into three sub-objectives which are (1) the building of grounded theory in project management with public hand interference, (2) provision of a process model for IT mega projects with failing course of action, escalation and de-escalation, and (3) development of normative recommendations for practitioners.

This book addresses the economic impact of communication standards that experience
network effects. Communication standards, when compared to other public goods,
typically ex-perience different diffusion and adoption patterns due to network
properties. This work investigates diffusion dynamics and adoption behaviors
of utility-maximizing agents with goods that experience network effects, and
offers an explanation of diffusion paths and dynamics in emerging communication
standards networks.

Combining theories of diffusion and network effects, a new goods classification
model is presented to explore the dissemination of IT and e-business standards
within an empirical field of study. The study findings are used to design two
applications that support and im-prove firms’ electronic interlaced communication
through automation and standardization effects.

The author then engages a grounded theory approach to understand how network
effects drive the diffusion of communication standards. The model is implemented
as a simulation to show the dynamic interplay between direct and indirect network
effects during the diffusion process. As a starting point, the model also addresses
critical mass and life cycle issues, as well as related utility changes in communication
standards. The author concludes by detailing the connections between the new
model and existing literature on network effects.

“Roman Beck breaks new ground in explaining the role
of communication standards in the creation of positive network effects that
have become central to the knowledge economy. This work is required reading
for those interested in the mechanics and implications of adoption and diffusion
of communication standards.”

John Leslie King, Dean and Professor, School of
Information, University of Michigan, USA

“This book is a must-read for and belongs into the personal library
of all those, i.e. academicians as well as practitioners and policy makers,
who strive to shape our new digital world by harnessing information and information
technology.”

Global E-Commerce: Impacts of National Environment and Policy
The new millennium coincided with an explosion in the use of the Internet for commercial purposes. Dot com companies in the U.S. such as Amazon and eBay led the way, creating new online services where none had existed before. Recognizing the value of ecommerce, traditional companies also jumped online, including Wal-Mart in retail, Cisco in networking, Dell in the PC industry, and Charles Schwab in banking. In just a few short years, a company without a web site was considered passé and the Internet was becoming mythologized: “a few years from now business economists may include the Internet in the Schumpeterian Hall of Fame, as an economic innovation of the same magnitude as the steam engine and the assembly lines of yore” (DePrince Jr. & Ford, 1999). Radical changes toward online business models were widely believed to be ushering in a “new economy” requiring new competitive strategies, business models, and even a new economics. Given the major role played by the U.S. in developing the Internet and fostering its commercialization, other nations voiced concern that it would dominate e-commerce, spreading American culture and economic influence via electronic networks. The Internet compresses time and space, making it easier for companies to expand beyond regional boundaries. Commerce emerges as a powerful force beyond the control of individual countries, with a corollary being that the relevance of differences between countries diminishes. Taking this argument to the extreme, some predicted the emergence of a borderless global economy. In his treatise on strategies for the new economy, Kenichi Ohmae (2001, pp. 5) argues that “the idea of Japan or America as economic aggressor is simply a ‘cartographic illusion’ – a misperception derived from the false idea that national borders represent lines of true political autonomy.” Powerful global production networks and the rise of offshore outsourcing would appear to be consistent with this view of a borderless global economy. The Internet may indeed be driving a shift toward a global marketplace, with significant ramifications for supply chains, business processes, customer service, and the basis of competition. In times of rapid change, historical perspective is lacking. What is reality and what is hype? And how can we systematically distinguish between the two? Anecdotes and case studies have been the primary means of examining the impact of the Internet on societies, markets, and economies, painting detailed portraits of particular organizations and events. Exposing rich phenomena in context helps understand the “how” and “why” of e-commerce. However, their application to other contexts is limited. What happens in one country or region may not happen in another. The impact of back-office e-commerce operations may be different than customerfacing websites. Processes particular to one industry such as finance differ from those in others such as manufacturing. This leads to differences in how the Internet and e-commerce are applied, resulting in varying performance impacts. A systematic analysis of the impact of the Internet and e-commerce across firms, industries, and economies is necessary to separate hype from reality. We focus on understanding the topographical patterns of e-commerce across diverse economies and industries in order to assess the evolution of e-commerce (transformational versus incremental change), the extent of U.S. hegemony, and the extent to which globalization diminishes the power of nations, shapes local economies, and re-aligns national cultures. This book addresses these and other issues by reporting the results of a major research program using country case studies, secondary data, and survey data collected across ten economies, three industries, and small and large firms. The research program, which is called the Global E-Commerce (GEC) Project, was supported by grants from the Information Technology Research (ITR) Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation. Our research was focused on understanding how differences in national environments and policy influenced the diffusion and impacts of e-commerce in a global context. Consequently, we examined diffusion in ten economies, including both developed and developing ones. Within each economy we further studied the three industry sectors most shaped by the early diffusion of e-commerce--manufacturing, distribution and finance—and both small and large firms within these sectors. Among the various studies that comprised the GEC Project, we gathered secondary data on 40 economies, historical case study data on 10 economies, and original survey data on 2139 firms across the 10 case study economies. We refer to this later survey data as the “GEC Survey” or “global sample” throughout the book. The value propositions of the research program described herein are fourfold. Given varying approaches to managing and controlling national economies, varying levels of technological infrastructure, and diverse national, business, and consumer cultures, we might expect significant variation in how e-commerce is adopted, how it diffuses, and how it impacts firms, industries and countries. The first value proposition is thus an enhanced and systematic understanding of the relationship between national environments and policy and the use and impacts of e-commerce. Findings also improve understanding of variation in e-commerce use and impacts across manufacturing, finance, and retail industries, as well as across large versus small and medium-sized organizations. Such results inform the decisions of policymakers who seek to develop and shape e-commerce applications to fit their specific contexts with maximal benefit. Results also assist researchers in their quest to unearth structural patterns in how technology is diffused and used, and its effects. The second value proposition of the book is to provide insights for firms, industries and global e-commerce markets. Analysis of the GEC survey data reveals substantial opportunities for the application of e-commerce to fit local contexts. Results described herein underscore, however, that a one-size-fits-all approach is not advisable. Only by carefully understanding the historical antecedents of information technology application as well as the prevailing business and cultural conditions, can e-commerce application be successful. The third value proposition is to serve as a benchmark for future studies. One motivation for the current research program was a lack of cross-country analyses of e-commerce application using systematic survey data. Having undertaken this colossal task, it is our hope that this research program, as documented herein, will serve as a rigorous scientific benchmark for future studies of national and global Internet and e-commerce trends. To this end, the editors have attempted to be completely transparent in describing and interpreting not only the findings of the various studies, but also the methodology used to derive them. The final value proposition is providing a snapshot in time to preserve the early facts of the e-commerce and Internet revolution. So much has been written about the Internet and ecommerce by pundits, essayists, economists, business researchers, and others. Unfortunately, however, intermingled with excellent studies and useful insights is a monumental collection of hyperbole. This book, therefore, is a counterbalance of sorts, enabling future generations to assess studies of the Internet, e-commerce, and globalization and draw their own conclusions about what really happened—or didn’t happen.

Despite the benefits associated with vertical communication standards like EDI or WebEDI, their diffusion among SMEs has failed to a surprising extent. Accordingly, SME integration into value chains is still a critical issue for IS research on standards diffusion. Goal of this contribution is to disclose the reasons for the slow diffusion of EDI and WebEDI among SMEs and to propose concrete solutions. Based on an empirical survey among SMEs in the German office supply industry, economic and technical obstacles to standard diffusion are identified. First, it is shown that EDI and especially WebEDI solutions are simply economically dominated by a widespread practice in SMEs which is using a Fax for business document exchange. Second, as many SMEs do not employ automated material management systems, they lack the necessary technical preconditions for economically viable EDI. Third, based on these findings a concrete EDI solution is delineated that accounts for the economic and technical particularities constraining SMEs. The proposed solution is successfully applied in the office supply industry today and enables SMEs to reap the benefits of bidirectional EDI while avoiding the expensive investments in EDI converter systems that have so far restrained them from participating in vertical standardization.

The emergence of e-commerce in Europe is a fascinating policy study object with key actors in all EU countries firmly assured that digitalization of the economy is the key to the magic kingdom of strong economic growth, and that the digital economy would require asserted policy responses to ensure that European jobs would not be taken over by the dominant US IT industry and the global, multinational industry players utilizing the technology. In this paper we reveal how Denmark, Germany and France had rather similar policies furthering knowledge diffusion but were rather reluctant to use direct economic incentives, normative instruments, or e-government initiatives like for example e-tendering and e-procurement. Yet the three countries pursued very different paths on the route towards the digital economy both when it comes to the responsiveness of government and to the implementation in society. This is explored in the pioneering, gold rush and maturity era’s.

The Diffusion and Efficient Use of Electronic Commerce in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: An International Three-Industry Survey

In: EM - Electronic Markets (15:1), pp. 38-52; Taylor & Francis Group

Category: Publications in scientific journals

Abstract

The diffusion of e-commerce applications and solutions in many countries and industry sectors seems to have reached a mature level. This applies not only for large firms, but also for SMEs in three analyzed industry sectors (manufacturing, retail/wholesale, and banking/insurance) in Denmark, Germany, and the US. With the exception of France, a rather large number of SMEs in these countries responded that the implementation of e-commerce contributed substantially to improve existing operational processes and to expand markets. Although e-commerce technologies may be available hypothetically in all industries and firms, an efficient usage of e-commerce is closely related to a comprehensive implementation of more sophisticated solutions, e.g., on-line procurement or Internet-based supply chain management. Firms with an all-embracing approach applying many e-commerce applications are more often efficient than firms with a lower e-commerce diffusion rate in the analyzed sample.

After a certain time lag, the diffusion of information systems and e-business applications among German industries seems to be successful in catching-up leading countries such as Scandinavia or the US. In an empirical survey with 903 firms in four countries, more than one third of all firms responded that the implementation of e-business contributed substantially to improve existing operational processes and to expand markets. Although e-business technologies may be available theoretically in all industries and firms, a sustainable impact on business processes depends on the extent and number of deployed e-business applications. A further prerequisite for efficient usage is the consistent and broad integration of applications. On a macroeconomic level, different economic environments and specific national drivers have a significant influence on the diffusion and resulting impact of e-business applications among the industries analyzed.

Integration of E-Commerce by SMEs in the Manufacturing Sector: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

In: Journal of Global Information Management (13:3) pp 20-32

Category: Publications in scientific journals

Abstract

SMEs in the manufacturing industry are impacted by enormous changes in their business processes. E-commerce-related developments have reduced the importance of physical branches towards more sophisticated and e-commerce-enabled supply chains for products and services. This paper analyzes the differences among SMEs in the manufacturing sector in four countries based on empirical data collected via a survey. Best practice cases such as Denmark or the US in performing e-commerce in an efficient way are identified by using a data envelopment analysis (DEA). Leading SMEs in the sample have implemented consequently a wide range of e-commerce applications, resulting in a higher satisfaction rate.

The diffusion of innovations has long been a research domain in IS research. Yet, there is no sound theory nor practice to fully understand the complex mechanisms behind networks of users who are tied together by compatibility requirements as is frequently witnessed in information and communication networks. The goal of this paper is to identify key determinants of the technology battle between WAP and i-mode that is recently raging between German cellular service providers and to propose a possible diffusion path.
By adapting an existing network model of technology diffusion, key influences are identified and incorporated into a computer-based simulation model. In doing so, trade-offs like better presentation quality on i-mode cellular clients vs. higher service costs compared to WAP applications can be modeled to propose a systematic sensitivity analysis of factors influencing the success of the respective mobile technologies and associated services. Not at least, the simulation model supports mobile services providers to customize their prices for a faster market penetration through regarding not only indirect (WAP, i-mode) but also direct network effects (SMS, i-mail) as crucial factors for adopters.

This research is part of the Globalization and E-commerce Project of the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO) at the University of California at Irvine. The research is supported by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (CISE/IIS/CSS).

The advent of Web technology and standards as XML had many hope for seamless business integration. Especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) were considered to finally participate in existing EDI networks. In this paper the authors show that there are principle obstacles to integrating SMEs that are often neglected and that require coordination designs substantially different from those often used.